


Eat Nightmares

by CforCreate



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Body Horror, Buried Alive, Claustrophobia, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Human Bill Cipher, Lucid Dreaming, Mouth!Bill Cipher, POV First Person, Paraphrenia, Psychological Torture, Scopophobia, decompression, falling, suffocation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CforCreate/pseuds/CforCreate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares aren't real! Wake up, shake it off, forget about it. That was your philosophy until a strange rash of night terrors now has you convinced that the wrath of an all knowing mind demon is upon you. </p><p>Surely it's all in your head, but how many horrifying days and sleepless nights can you go before giving in to this figment's demands?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Demon Scorned

**Author's Note:**

> [[Hey everyone! 
> 
> This is a 1st person POV fic involving the (currently gender-neutral) Reader and an extremely vindictive Bill Cipher. No romance here! Just Bill being his twisted jerk self when he's unable to cut a deal with the reader in one of their dreams, then makes it his mission to ruin their life.
> 
> Why is he really doing all this? Well you'll just have to read and find out!
> 
> TLDR; Bill: Nice life ya got here, would be a shame if anyone were to wreck it!]]

It had started off fanciful, and with just the right amount of controlling reality you’d expect in a good dream. Exploring an ancient shipwreck without SCUBA gear. Soaring over the Coney Island fair with an umbrella and megaphone. Laughing and joking with dream-renditions of your best friends past and present, ignoring the fact that none of you were wearing pants, or your usual heads of hair.

Something had suddenly changed the tone though. The color was leeching from the dreamscape, everyone but you slowing to a dead stop. Then you heard a laugh. High pitched and nasally, not exactly something that instilled fear, but combined with the absolute hijacking of what was turning out to be a fantastic dream, you couldn’t help but shrink a bit inside.

The monochrome wall of your frozen living room distended with a sharp point, stabbed from the outside. It soon yielded a triangular vaudevillian reject with a haughty arrogance you hoped you would never see paralleled.

“Hey there! Name’s Bill Cipher!”

His outstretched hand was left unanswered. You were sill wondering if he was 3 dimensional and flat, or 2 dimensional with exceptional edging detail. And if The Slayers had taught you anything, it was that beings that made entrances like that, and looked like a final project for 5th grade Geometry, were probably not offering their hand with friendly intentions.

“Not the chatty type I see! Well I’ll get right down to business then-”

His voice remained saccharin and upbeat, but everything about his demeanor set off your alarms. Friendly or not, you weren’t about to let your great dream turn heel into nightmare town due to whatever Twilight Zone Episode in your memory this guy dropped in from.

“You’re having fun, they’re having fun,” he gestured first to you, then your still-framed dream-friends with the base of his cane. “I just want in on it!”

He hovered in close and you flinched when he tapped on the back of your head with an impossibly twisted arm from the far side of his triangle body. 

“Howsabout you give me a commuter’s day pass to Realsville in exchange for saaay a week of uninterrupted dreaming?”

Why was it whenever you finally got into a good dream groove some weird scary movie or freaky television memory would come out of nowhere and ruin it? You’d dealt with this before though, and concentrated before dealing with it again.

“Look Blinkey,” You smacked his hand away from your head. “You’re cute n’ all,” his eye widened, possibly out of shock, or insult. Probably both. You frowned at him and leveled a hard glare before continuing, “but I’d rather you just butt out of my dream.”

With a snap of your fingers and wide flourish of your arm, Bill’s eye disappeared, and the creepy wall melting motion that brought him into the room played in reverse to suck him right back out, screaming obscenities and pawing at his blank yellow-bricked face the whole way.

“YOU LOWLY PARAMECIUM!! _YOU’LL REGRET THIS!!_ ”

The color slowly began to bleed back into reality. You smiled with satisfaction, until a violent shock of crimson broke through the wall, burning away the scene until only you and the previously yellow squirt of a polygon floated in a bloody void.

He was bigger, redder, and much angrier. He had also gotten his eye back, now an unsettling wash of black with a glowing red pupil focused squarely on you. This wasn't how you had intended this dream to go at all, and it was showing in your terrified expression as his booming, guttural voice cried out.

" **EAT NIGHTMARES!!** "

“GYAHH!!” You awoke with a start, red digital numbers blinking 0614 by your bedside, and a nasty swath of sweat-covered hair glued to your forehead. Well now was as good a time as any to start the day. The uneasy quibble in the pit of your stomach at the memory of your dream wasn't exactly inviting you to hit the mattress again for a quick snooze session either.

By the end of the day, between work, errands, the gym, and a surprisingly productive run in with a stranger at lunch, you’d forgotten all about the previous night’s encounter. 

Bill hadn't forgotten though. As your head hit the pillow and the stress of the day melted into the covers, a three-sided shadow descended along the wall to merge into your own.


	2. 'Fraid Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Go West, young reader! 
> 
> Just one night after your encounter with a Triangle that calls himself "Bill Cipher" and he's already wreaking havoc in your dreams. This town certainly ain't big enough for the two of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[The first nightmare! Heed that body horror tag, wary readers!]]

“Ah the Old West.”

The narrator was a nice touch, sounded like John Wayne with a twang of Gene Autry thrown in for good nostalgic measure. You moseyed down the bustling main street with a wide grin, twisting a few bits of apparel around on yourself until just the right measure of Annie Oakley and Clint Eastwood balanced out.

A single step in your leather boots and the interior of the Bucket-O-Blood Saloon was already replacing the wide and high prairie sky in your dreamscape. A sweet and soft rendition of “Old Folks at Home” was wafting from a pair of Banjo players in the corner as the piano man sipped his whiskey and enjoyed the respite, leaning on his upright and tapping his foot in time. 

You closed your eyes, enjoying the atmosphere, but then it suddenly began to change. Before your eyes could blink open again, you felt a parched sensation in your throat and the sun’s burning sting on your cheek. No longer in the Saloon, scrub peppered desert stretched endlessly all around you, the colors muted and the music faint and off-key as it continued to drift in the air like dissipating smoke.

“The hell…” You took a few cursory steps in one direction, paused, then repeated the motion in the other direction, assessing the new surroundings. It was a little unnerving, but this wasn't a situation that scared you per se. It just made you wonder. 

You didn't need to play this game though, and with a click of your heel a mail delivery carriage snapped through the reality, the two horses rearing up to heel just in front of you. The driver smiled down from his perch, color saturating the surroundings once again.

“Need a ride, stranger!?”

You tipped your hat and indulged the cliche with a smile, “Much obliged.”

Not moments after the driver jostled the reins next to you, the monochrome haze began seeping into the edges of your vision again. A faint voice whispered through the wind, _Oh no no no, you’re not getting off **that** easy_. This change in atmosphere, it all felt familiar, but before you had time to process where from, the horses began shrieking.

Their flesh peeled, then shuddered away, but they kept charging onward as pieces of muscle and sinew were caught in the passing terrain and stripped away bit by bit. You balked at the horrific sight, then jumped when the driver grabbed your arm. His forearm was split through by the shaft of an arrow, more of them puncturing his body as your eyes traveled from his hand, to his shoulder, to his face. His hat flew off revealing his scalp, sliced and peeled back. Cleaving marks on his face criss-crossed at the bridge of his nose leaving both eyes cut and blinded by a large, bloody “X.” 

You screamed and tried to pull away just as a split opened in the man’s forehead to reveal a single, squinting, yellow-tinted eye with a long pupil. The dead man began laughing through his bloodstained teeth. His tone turned higher and sharper until it echoed a nasally cackle that you recognized in a heartbeat.

“Howdy _pardner_!”

Bill's horrific puppet gave a hard shove and sent you off the edge of the careening carriage. The ground and sharp scrub brush rushed up to meet you with a painful smack and then-

0546 blinked in red at your bedside as you rubbed the bad memories from your face. 

Up and at-em a little earlier than usual yet again. You made your way to the bathroom and grabbed the toothbrush, instinctively going through the motions through sleep crusted eyes. You raised the brush to your teeth and focused on the mirror only to jump, the brush clattering into the sink with a gasp as you steadied yourself from almost falling into the bathtub. 

Surely it was just a lingering image from the nightmare, but you could have sworn you saw a single eye peel open in the wall behind you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Shots fired after the buzzer? Let it never be said that Bill Cipher fights fair.]]


	3. Abysmal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your subconscious takes you beneath the waves for a 20,000 league adventure! An adventure that Bill is all too happy to steer right into the baffles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Reader beware, you're in for drowning, claustrophobia, and the terrifying uncertainty of the void!]]

Sleep was a welcome respite from the day of insanity you’d just endured. Stress that had been spurned on by some sleep hallucination that made you start to double take at everything that remotely resembled an eye. But it was all silly, almost on an impressive level. If only you could drum up characters you actually wanted to interact with for two dreams in a row!

The black of the back of your eyelids faded and slowly brightened until clear emerald waters and a dazzling flash of silver minnow parted to let you glide by. Now the moment of truth: Drowning Nightmare? Or Undersea Adventure? A deep draw of watery breath confirmed the latter, and with it came a self congratulatory smile. 

Flipping through a few mental options (fins, steampunk sub, monstrous leviathan,) you settled on a good old fashioned Aquaman-style propulsion ability with a dash of ‘not having to feel any of that horrendous ‘icky toes’ sensation when brushing against seaweed.’ 

After flying past gnarled edifice-sized corals, racing a school of singing flying fish, and fist bumping a ghostly skeleton 1st mate wandering the deep in search of his sunken crew’s whereabouts, you began to knock on the proverbial wood, unable to block out the thought of everything suddenly-

“ _Going down the drain?_ ”

That voice again!?

A gigantic vortex rose up suddenly from nowhere, and the serene clear scenery blurred. Visibility dropped abysmally low and as you fought fruitlessly against the pull of the vortex, what was left of the color bled out of every object, sucked into the violently thrashing nothingness crushing all around you.

The maelstrom suddenly ceased and as you opened your eyes, the surroundings made your stomach drop. A cramp, creaking, well aged deep submersible and its brittle metal hull was all that stood between you and the crushing black of the deep. 

The lone viewing window acted more like a mirror due to the pathetically weak blinking of a pressure control indicator light by your head. The void. Your horrified disbelief. The void. You again. You jerked your hand up to cover the incessant blinking, closed your eyes, and took a deep breath of stale, recycled air.

You would open your eyes and the sub would be surfaced. There would be a research vessel there to pick you up with a full catered lunch and traditional Oktoberfest band to celebrate the successful scientific voyage. You opened your eyes.

Same monochrome colors. Same aging machinery. Same inky black. Nothing had changed. Well that wasn't completely true. Now there was a distant string of lights drifting eerily in the void. Even as you tried to will the thing away it drew closer and closer, larger and larger. A crush of teeth and spines were accompanying the lights, a monster that dwarfed the small sub as it glided silently past you. With the deftest, smallest nudge against the craft, a klaxon went off.

“No…no no no!!” there was nothing to turn, no controls to adjust, the sub was uncontrollably sinking with no bottom in sight. Horrific jaws, sightless eyes, fins, spines, glowing blobs, and formless ghostly wisps in all manner of amalgam drifted by.

“Having fun yet!?”

“GAH!!”

You jumped, cramming yourself against the back of a space barely large enough for a small child as Bill appeared inside the reflection of the viewing window.

“Poseidon Adventure? Or Abyss? Yaknow I never did get to finish either of them. And here you are just livin’ the fantasy! You lucky devil you!” 

An unsettling cracking began echoing through the hull along with a low, haunting metallic groan. 

You closed your eyes to try willing everything away again, but nothing changed, and Bill’s annoying voice cut through the foreboding sounds.

“You’re lookin' pretty worried there, buddy! Blue skies, fair winds, and following seas! All this and more can be yours for the low low price of **one deal**!”

Eyes closed again, open again, and still nothing. 

A large, jagged, L-shaped crack snapped across the acrylic of the viewing window, distorting Bill’s appearance with a terrifying reflection of his crooked malice. The angry groan of metal blended with Bill’s voice as he chuckled.

“No no, I got ya. You still need a little time to think about it, don't ya?”

Your fearful gaze met his, and his eye flashed a gleeful shade of yellow as the reflection brought his cane up to the window and gave it a single, solid rap.

_So think about it._

Your eyes widened just before the explosive rupture of the acrylic gave way to an astronomical crush of water. Bone, plastic, and metal pushed in from all angles at horrific speeds. The horrible image of your mangled compression lingered even as the brief sensation of pain dissipated.

“GHHAAh!!” You awoke with a violent gasp, almost knocking over the nightstand as you flipped the lights on in a near panic. A gentle breeze brought fresh air through the room from your cracked window. All the deathly muted greens and stiff grays of the metal tomb you’d just experienced were replaced with the familiar pallet of home. Even the usual angrily blinking clock digits were a welcome sight.

You entered the restroom facing the back wall, inspecting it thoroughly for any blinking, glaring, or winking features before risking the mirror again. But even with that precaution, a shriek found its way out of you for the second morning in a row. Your back to the previously inspected wall, a cold sweat beading on your forehead from the sight.

A large, jagged, L-shaped crack in your mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Bill's holding quite a grudge for one little slight, wonder what he could really be up to?]]


	4. Jungle Cruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventure is out there! 
> 
> From the 1930's Dark Heart of Africa, your jungle adventure takes a nasty turn when Bill traps you in a beastlier version of 'The Deadliest Game.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Adventurers take heed; a desperate chase, entrapment, and body horror await!]]

Your lunch break was spent on the phone, but the best Home Depot could do was a Thursday evening delivery, so you would have a little more time with the unnerving reminder of the previous night’s jump-scare in your master bathroom. The creepy coincidence was bad enough, but the grocery-run sized chunk out of your wallet was what really stung.

Groucho Marx’s voice sounded off in your head as you thought to yourself "I’ve heard of adding invoice to injury but this is just ridiculous!" and you chuckled at the silly reference. At least you hoped that was only you chuckling to yourself after the terrible pun. Just a trick of the mind, probably. That annoying voice was only in your dreams after all.

Your set brow and cocked frown was split down the middle of the mirror as you finished your nightly wash and brush routine. You checked the edges of it before hitting the sack, just to make sure it would last the wait before its replacement arrived. Anything to keep your mind off the obvious dread about what might crop up in your dreams at bay. 

It worked, to an extent, as you only recalled the annoying laugh of that yellow triangular nightmare just moments before slipping away in the gentle wake of a dream boat. A dream boat that was apparently heading up river! Jungle drums, half-submerged crocodiles, and machete-ready vines all the way!

You flicked a bit of hair out of your eyes and the pith helmet, khaki pants, and flask of gin and tonic practically procured themselves. A little Samantha Sterling, some Hathaway Browne, the spirit of a young Charles Muntz, and Van Pelt’s impeccable wardrobe had you trekking through the underbrush in no time! You could have sworn you heard a “ _Free drink, Colonel!_ ” echo somewhere in the distance even!

After enjoying a marvelous afternoon tea with a gaggle of flamingos, you came across a lion adjusting its mane and had a riotous laugh-in as you both tried on different sets of wigs. He accompanied you through a perilous abandoned temple, jewel eyed stone guardians apologizing profusely upon mistaking you for a tomb robber. You brushed a few of their blocked darts off your leather pouch and shared another laugh with the King of the Jungle, plucking a dart lodged in his mane out from between his ears. 

But he wasn't laughing, not like before. That’s when you suddenly noticed the ominous shape embedded in the main wall of the ruins. A single open eye. Above it, a top hat. And beneath it, a bow tie. The conveyed comedic image was sickeningly misleading to anyone who hadn't met the personality behind the caricature.

Suddenly the playful emerald speckled light that had made the moss covered stonework so inviting before, now faded away to a gloomy, ominous gray. The stone guardians stood stoic and imposing in their alcoves once more as a muted, monochrome reality began to spin around you. Everywhere turned to sheer granite wall, blocking you in, a perfect square with dozens of stone pillars checkering the central area of the space. The walls at least 15 feet high on all sides made it painfully obvious that this was an arena, and you were the entertainment.

The lion you had been palling around with just seconds before began shedding, patches of rotted flesh laying bare between the matted and puss-caked fur. Mange gnarled the poor creature on any limb that remained covered in flesh. You backed away, reluctant to acknowledge what was coming. You tried to will it away, but you knew it wasn't going to work. Just like it didn't work the last two nights. But those were separate dreams...? You shouldn't even have been able to tie them together in your mind while dreaming, but it was all laid out for you to realize, intentional and deliberate, cold and calculated. 

As your four pawed friend shuddered and jerked, body horrifically twisting into an unrecognizable abomination, a nagging voice piped up just over your shoulder. 

“You should stick around! Maybe he’s still friendly!”

You whipped your head around to find nothing but an empty, daunting stretch of corridor and heard a sickly hacking sound before the slow timbre of a growl crawled up your spine.

Without looking back you took off down the corridor, the laboring huff of a dying beast just steps behind you. Around one column, then another, and another. You took the turns as hard as you could, shoulder striking the edge of a pillar more than once. After a few adrenaline panic fueled seconds you pressed up against one of the columns and held your breath, eyes squeezed shut, praying for a moment of rest from the monstrosity bearing down on you.

The silence was worse than the sound of your exhausted gasping during the chase. Shuddering breath covered as best as possible as you dared glance from behind the pillar. 

Nothing was there.

You peeked around the opposite way, and then twice more.

It was gone, and the the only sound was pounding in your ears as your heart hammered away, starving for oxygen as you controlled every careful breath you took.

“Ever played ‘Manhunt’ before, chuckles?”

There he was, hovering before you, practically hollering in the precious silence you had managed to find safety in. Without even looking you knew the rotting creature had heard him. Its blood-slick paws slapping the stone slabs as it bounded towards you.

Bill snickered and focused your gaze in a new direction with a quick tap of his cane against the pillar you were leaning on. An open door emerged, a pathway out of your nightmarish arena was only three corridors away set in the stone.

“You know the deal! First one to the safe zone wins~ Or at least, doesn't get eaten!” he cackled, popping out of your line of sight just in time to give you a perfect view of the gigantic creature bearing down on you, blood-soaked gums dripping as a few of its teeth fell out from the impact of his paws. Half of its lower jaw was snapped off, blood pouring from the severed vessels as it ran, tongue flapping out of its ruined face, head partially split down the middle from a careless poacher’s handy work. One of the eyes was missing, black and gangrenous as it continued rotting away into the skull with every stride.

Bill flicked his wrist to collect the dropped incisor and canine, exclaiming with glee, "Ooh! Keeping these for later!"

You were already running but could see it getting closer without even looking, the unique dreamscape feeding every angle of the terror-filled moment into your mind. Just a few more meters, its claws swiped and missed, taking a scrap of your khaki leggings with it. Just one last stride and...!! 

The door _disappeared_. 

You crashed headlong into a moss strewn wall, Bill’s sadistic cackle ringing through the stonework as you felt claws and teeth and agony dig into your back, death and rot filling your nostrils. 

Your room blinked back into focus after a few quick gasps, the phantom pain of the dream just a bad memory as you rolled over and covered your face to steady your thoughts. 

“…ONE MORE TIME~!!”

Bill’s voice shouting in the still air of your room made your body freeze, eyes shooting open beneath your hands as you mouthed utter disbelief.

A low hiss filled your ears and you removed your shaking hands just as the decaying lion’s corpse reared up and bared down on you with a sickening crunch.

Red digits blinked in the darkness. 0425. And another sharp yelp from your bedroom broke the early morning air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[False endings are fair game for this three-sided jerk.
> 
> ALL of the kudos (and heartfelt condolences) to anyone who gets the Samantha Sterling, Hathaway Browne, and Colonel Critchlow Sunchbench references. Kungaloosh, adventurers!]]


	5. Wild Blue Yonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a small step for man?
> 
> Aviation and aerospace always makes for an exciting lucid dream! But you're starting to question yourself on these recurring nightmares. If it's all in your head then surely there's a way to avoid having them in the first place! Of course when Bill Cipher is involved, failure is always an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Open the pod bay doors, Bill. 
> 
> I'm afraid I can't do that, reader.
> 
> Decompression and space-related terror in T-minus 3...2...1...]]

The crack in the bathroom mirror had you looking past yourself at the tiled walls as you brushed your teeth that morning, keeping a eye out for any weird shadows or reflections in the tile that might trick you into seeing something you knew wasn't actually there.

After talking about the last few nights over lunch with a friend, it was easy to laugh it all away. Completely writing off the coincidental crack due to the known shifting building foundation, and the recurring Bill character as just another deep seated cartoon memory. Probably from early childhood. Maybe even from the first round of recurring nightmares you could recall back in 3rd grade. Wow that was a long time ago though! But it made sense when you both talked it out. The mind is a powerful thing after all.

Sleep came easily that night. You found yourself smirking slightly at the thought of the last few nightmares, wondering what kind of insanity your subconscious would whip up this time. Come what may, you’d wake up in a few hours no worse for the wear. At least that’s what you repeated to yourself over and over as the faint shadow of a triangle bearing a top hat hovered on the wall just behind your head, stringy limbs hanging down like waiting lures just below the surface of the water.

Thanks to the rigors of your fully booked day, it wasn't a long wait.

Off you went, into the wild blue yonder! A few aileron rolls had you whipping through insanely large rock outcrops and barely missing a cliff side with an excited whoop and holler. Instantly the ground materialized under your feet, allowing you to adjust your appearance and flip a few flight options around. Flying was one of the toughest dream situations to lucidly control, but when it worked, it was a total rush. Either as a bird, or a monster, in a vehicle, a jet pack, or covered in armor, it was tough to choose how you wanted this dream to go. 

An old Chuck Jones cartoon memory butted in, and soon had you soaring in a fighter jet past snow covered peaks and through massive formations of enemy UFO’s. The ending of Independence Day played on 30x speed in your mind as you laughed through the aerial assault. You suddenly found yourself in one of the alien ships, zipping through the upper atmosphere and sling-shotting around the moon with an unrealistic relative speed that could only be possible in dreams. Or sensationalist Hollywood movies.

The rush of the trip had your cheers echoing in your suit helmet as you waved off the praise coming over the comm channel from various world leaders for saving the day _yet again_.

There was no color to leech out of this view. The black of space and white spots of stars that dotted the background behind the gorgeous lunar gray surface were a calming sight until you began to wonder if it would happen again. If it was already happening, and the lack of color was just a well timed coincidence in your mind.

You fell silent and waited, eyes jumping from the moon’s gray silhouette to the black vacuum, and back again. There was one way to know. Your space vehicle executed a slow roll to bring the Earth into view. Would it be mottled splashes of ocean, land, and cloud? Or a black and white warning sign? The slow slide of the moon and stars across your open field of vision was maddening. Just a few seconds passed, but it felt like eternity in your mind. Then you saw it.

The blue marble.

A smile finally broke through your previously clenched jaw. Maybe that was it. Maybe thinking about it so intensely broke the cycle. Maybe the expectation in your mind was all you needed to acknowledge to keep the nightmare scenario at bay.

“And _maybe_ I’m just enjoying you driving yourself nuts with anticipation!”

Oh no.

You blinked, and the Earth was gray. 

The viewing window suddenly had a pinhole puncture that traced through the spacecraft. The small meteoroid continued its 17,500 mile per hour journey straight through your space suit, and inevitably, you. The sharp pain wasn't real, just like in any dream, It only hurt in theory. But the sight of it happening so clearly in your mind made it feel real enough, if only just for a split second.

Decompression was an impressive sight from your awkward dream perspective. You could see yourself thrown against the inside of the viewing window which promptly cracked, then shattered, sending you careening into a degraded trajectory around the moon. You were spinning from the impact, blood droplets and pressurized air jettisoning from your suit puncture. The view suddenly switched back to 1st person, the close surface of the moon and small gray sphere flipping back and forth in your vision, muted red splattering on your helmet as it collided with the free floating specks of blood. You flinched from the sight, eyes squeezed shut until you couldn't bare the spinning sensation any more and forced them open.

Red digital numbers greeted you as you blinked away the spinning. 0403, another painfully short night’s rest.

As you willed yourself to sit up in bed, rubbing the sting from your eyes, the spinning sensation came back with a vengeance. 

You were a scant few dozen meters from the moon now, hurtling across the surface at just under the necessary velocity to maintain orbit. Your suit pinged an air supply warning, the last few seconds of oxygen flowing out through the blood-soaked, frozen-over puncture in your stomach.

But you had just seen your clock! You didn't go back to sleep! Or did you?

“Don’t think about it too hard, pal. You might _hurt yourself_.”

Bill’s eye squinted gleefully in the reflection inside your helmet. You couldn't even gasp, the suit completely depressurized as you tumbled closer and closer to the dusty lunar surface. As quickly as Bill appeared, your visor was clear again just in time to see the edge of a crater rushing at you at 1,600 meters per second.

You flinched and braced for impact. But it didn't come. After a few excruciatingly tense seconds your eyes opened once again to the familiar sight of a digital clock. It was 0407 now, or had that earlier glance just been part of the nightmare?

You half expected a nagging, nasally jeer to answer your inner questions, but only silence followed.

Of course only silence would follow! You were awake now and you had the hastily induced pinch marks to prove it! 

It was just a nightmare. He was just a nightmare. And nightmares couldn't last forever…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Sounds like you're finally starting to question these nightmares. So what are you gonna do about it?]]


	6. Not Convinced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to confront the problem, face your fears, take the bull by the horns!
> 
> You finally take the direct approach to this recurring nightmare and call Bill out personally.

It wasn't possible, but the encounters were their own evidence. It was definitely the same annoying laugh and your dreams had taken similar, unsuspecting, terrifying turns.

Recurring dreams almost never stayed chronologically linked from night to night. Yet this Bill Cipher guy was clearly referencing previous dreams you had with him. And the only recurring nightmares you had before involved places and situations, not characters. Each nightmare had been radically different save for Bill’s appearance, which was just too weird for your tastes. If that wasn't bad enough, you also had the eye-related hallucinations while awake, and that nasty coincidence with your cracked bathroom mirror to pile onto the crazy train. You were determined to end it this time though. 

Call out the problem then explain it out of your conscious mind. Sounded easy enough.

Contrary to usual protocol, you found yourself dreading the end of the day, staving off sleep to catch up on a few series you had been putting off. Midway through Season 3 of TIGER FIST, you began nodding off, eyes finally closing for just a bit too long with one last head bob.

Your head snapped up with a few bleary blinks and the room was already monochrome, just like the last four nightmares. You stood and shook out your limbs. Well, theoretically shook them out, since it was all just a dream. 

Just a dream. 

Here we go…

“Bill? You here?”

The entire room shifted at the mention of the name. A quiet chuckle floated through the air before the creature himself assembled from the cracking floor tiles and floated out from a slightly shadowed section of your apartment, eye gleaming in the dark. A bit flashy considering his previous cameos.

“That was impressive amount of half-baked cognitive reasoning! You planning on breaking into par baked products or what? …That was a joke pal, try to keep up!”

You couldn't help but snicker at Bill’s, or rather, your bad pun, even as he admonished you, or rather, you admonished yourself, for the slow pick up. If nothing else, it just gave more ammunition to your theory that this Bill guy was indeed a figment of your own pun-loving subconscious. 

You gave a sideways glance at your apartment wall. Bay windows, and a new coat of paint instantly sprouting up from the crown molding at your thought. Your eyes leveled at the triangle and narrowed in concentration before you resigned with a huff. 

“Alright Blinky, why can’t I get rid of you?”

Bill chuckled and jabbed the handle of his cane in your stomach, “ _Blinky_. Funny. You’re a funny human, you know that?” The tone in his voice was practically bowing down and giving homage to Joe Pesci.

“I must be to think up something as ridiculous looking as you.”

“Woah now, don’t push your luck, pal. My patience, unlike my knowledge, is finite. Why don’t you do those bags under your eyes a favor and accept my offer?”

“What offer?” You had genuinely forgotten, writing off anything he initially said as irrelevant subconscious fluff.

He suddenly appeared behind you, hands behind his head, the cane rowing his invisible gondola through the air as he mused. 

“Just let me hop aboard the Humanity Express 999 to Planet Reality and you wont have to worry about these nightmares anymore.”

You could see your expression twist with annoyance in the 3rd person view as your inability to will this figment away became increasingly frustrating, “I can’t even begin to piece together that that actually means!”

Bill didn't even acknowledge your retort, acting out his statements with colorful gestures as he continued to prattle on.

“Just four nights and you’re already starting to crack up. Would hate to see what kind of horrible things you start to hallucinate about after five~!” His demeanor suddenly brightened as he continued, “You know rats can only go two weeks without sleep before they die? I wonder if humans are above or below that limit…”

It was embarrassing, and now disturbing, having to argue with your own subconscious threatening you with sleep deprivation, but this direct method seemed to be the only option left after so many fruitless nights waking up in a pitted shirt and sweat-soaked pillow case. Then again it wouldn’t be long before you became tired enough to ignore this insanity completely. It would have just been a lot more convenient to think it away now.

Bill’s single eye seemed to glint as you thought to yourself. He chuckled and rested his hands on his cane, leaning playfully on it as he spoke with an amused drawl. “Don’t tell me you’re _still_ under the impression that this is _all **just** a nightmare._ ”

You weren't going to dignify the statement with an answer. Of course he knew what you had been thinking just then, nothing that was happening was outside the limits of your mind.

“Oh no no, far be it from me to try to convince you.” Bills voice twisted with malicious glee as he now twirled his cane at his side, “You’ll convince yourself soon enough. In fact this is about to get a lot more fun… For me I mean,” he clarified in a matter-of-fact glance before drifting behind you again.

You grimaced and whipped around, ready to give good ol’ fashioned will power another try to get rid of this nightmare. And it must’ve worked, because he was already gone.

Your eyes shot open, the DVD title screen was looping on your computer, apparently for the last few hours. The wall was a wall again, the couch a couch, and the full color spectrum on brilliant display all around - especially the old familiar clock blaring 0733 in red numbers from across the room. 0733!?

“Oh shit, I’m gonna be LATE!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Looks like everything worked out in the end! What could possibly go wrong?]]


	7. Have We Met?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nightmares have finally stopped! However, after your mirror is finally replaced, you find yourself wishing for the days when nightmares were all you had to worry about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Human!Bill Cipher finally makes an appearance (and it wont be the only one either!) 
> 
> Bill's human form in this chapter is based off of Alice's wonderful design which can be found [here.](http://alicechrosnyart.tumblr.com/post/130444389839/didja-miss-me-little-by-little-did-another#notes) ]]

The day was awkwardly short thanks to your late start, but the peace of mind was a welcome change. No strange shapes were piquing your imagination at work, and your night was refreshingly free of horrific images and heart-stopping terror. It seemed to be free of anything at all actually. No dream was better than a nightmare though, so you weren’t complaining. 

Dawn broke and your alarm finally got a chance to wake you before your own terror. An average day’s work passed relatively quickly, and you found yourself being assaulted by the latest Bobby Renzobbi infomercial while waiting for your new mirror delivery.

As you pondered all conceivable uses for a trowel designed specifically for removing birds, there was a cheerful round of knocking at the door. Just as you rose to answer it, a familiar voice rang out from the other side that made you stop in your tracks.

“Special delivery!”

It was too close. Same nasally twang. Same haughty pitch. But you were wide awake, the nightmares had stopped, and colored reality was all around you. It sounded just like him though…

“Anybody home?”

You shook your head and marched determinedly to the peep hole, lecturing yourself for even considering something so crazy when the repair man’s dark navy coveralls, yellow back brace and tool belt came into fish-eyed view.

“Yes! Just a sec!” You called out, taking a deep breath and shooing away the last of the delusional alarms going off in your head as you opened the door.

“Hey, thanks for com-!!”

Just as quick as your paranoia had been tucked away, it jumped out again, crying irrational warnings as the man’s single, distinctly lashed eye blinked questioningly down at you. The other obscured by a large medical patch.

The repair man’s smile faltered as you froze in the doorway. His one good eye moved from your expression to the side of his injured face before he laughed and waved his hand in an almost apologetic manner. He pointed to the patch matter-of-factly with a quick shrug of his shoulders, “Relax pal, nothin’ contagious! Just a scratched cornea.”

Your heart was hammering as your mind was fighting to snuff out all the ridiculous, unrealistic associations flooding in from the weeks worth of similarly voiced, one-eyed nightmares in your memory banks. It took a second, but you wrestled sensibility back into control and issued a profuse apology. 

“Hah, sorry just… Wasn’t expecting it.”

You introduced yourself with a smile to the portly, dark skinned, black haired repair man. His toothy grin was absolutely infectious, even from its lofty perch a good few heads above yours beneath a perfectly coiffed fringe.

“Pleasure’s all mine,” he replied with a hearty hand shake that felt like a soft catcher’s mitt just made friends with your entire forearm. His grip was hot too, almost abnormally so, but you wrote it off as possible fever from his injury and showed him to the cracked mirror.

He sized up the mirror, then turned his gaze to you, and repeated the motion once more before both of you cracked up at the potential jokes that began bubbling up. You gave his arm a playful shove, “Don’t even say it!” And he just laughed and threw his arms up as if unjustly accused, “Hey buddy, I didn’t even think that gag was possible outside of a Warner Brothers flick!”

You groaned with a smile and left him to his work, bee lining to the kitchen for a drink. “Can I get ya anything? Coffee? Soda? Ahh…got some tea hiding out somewhere in the pantry.”

The repair man carted the old mirror out of the apartment and returned a moment later with the new one under his arm, “Don’t mind if I do! Got any Pitt?”

“Regular or Diet?” 

He stuck his head and shoulders out from the door way of your bathroom with perfect comedic presence. His heavily lashed eye lidded, jaw set skeptically to the side, and brow practically raised to the ceiling as he gestured to his generous figure with an expression that drawled _really?_ without having to say a word.

You fished out a pink can of Pitt Classic with a chuckle, “Hey man, I don’t assume.”

Muffled clacks of the mirror’s wooden frame against the bathroom tile drifted from the open door way as it was set into place. A few quick whirls of his power drill and a brief shifting of metal and leather from securing his tools heralded the near end of the appointment. You walked over to meet him with his well earned soda and gave his hand another hearty shake to go with the verbal and material gestures of appreciation.

“Thanks a bunch…ah…hm…”

As you handed over the soda your expression twisted with embarrassment, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever got your name!”

“Sure ya did! Don’t you remember?”

He took the can and leveled a strikingly different kind of stare down at you. His previously gleeful grin tugging at the edge of threatening as his drawn smile revealed a much sharper canine than you remembered. As he turned his head to face you, his well groomed hair betrayed a distinct point at the top of his ear as it tucked behind them.

“Name’s Bill, pal!”

Your own happy expression slowly began to drop as all the previous warning signs were hurled back to the forefront of your thoughts. His unnerving smile kept stretching until a black ichor began bleeding from the geometrical gash that split from the corner of his mouth and multiplied across his face in bricked rows.

“Bill Cipher!”

Your eyes widened in fearful disbelief as his pupil constricted to the familiar demonic slit that had haunted you for the past week. His medical patch erupted in blue flame as he shifted to face you down with a sadistic, reveling smirk. Almost comically, his signature top hat also materialized with the blue flame, offset and tiny in comparison to his domineering presence.

A loud knock at the door just behind you screamed **ESCAPE** over everything reasonable your pre-frontal cortex was trying to force past your panicking amygdalae in that moment.

Your fingernails dug a few flecks of paint off the wall as you grabbed desperately at the door handle and threw it open, running right into a very surprised Home Depot employee.

“Woah woah! What the hell!?” she exclaimed, understandably upset at nearly being bowled over by your unannounced dash from the door as it flew open. 

“It’s! He’s!!” But you were gesturing back at nothing but your empty apartment. “That’s, wait…no no,” you groaned and held your head with one hand, inspecting the kitchen and living room area in exasperation, ignoring the genuine expression of concern now coming from the repair woman as she took a tentative step through the doorway.

You were too busy counting the number of soda’s in your fridge, trying to remember if it should have been seven or five, to notice her flick your bathroom light on and shake her head with an annoyed huff.

“I don’t know what you’re playin’ at, but making crank appointments is gonna land you on our black list pretty fast, buddy. Have a nice day.” She spoke with a tone wavering somewhere between disappointment and disgust as she turned heel and walked out before you had a chance to protest.

Your apartment door closed hard and left you with creeping dread as you took slow, deliberate steps towards the bathroom’s open doorway. Your eyes closed just long enough to convince yourself the mirror would still be broken as you rounded the door frame. 

But it wasn’t still broken. It was perfectly fine. Brand new, even. And this time there was no sudden awakening to those wonderful red digital numbers at your bedside.

“Oh…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Did that really happen? Was it all just a trick of the mind? Maybe the mirror was never cracked in the first place?
> 
> Haha! Fat chance.]]


	8. Rest for the Weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was that a flash in the pan? Or the beginning of a horrible friendship? When Bill’s involved you can always assume the latter. Either way, nightmares aren't your only problem now! The lack of sleep is becoming noticeable and it doesn't look like there's any end in sight, until someone makes an unexpected house call that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Reader beware, actual plot development, suffocation, and being buried alive at constant bearing, decreasing range!]]

“Oh…”

You didn’t sleep that night. 

Over and over you paced between the newly replaced bathroom mirror and your now under-cooled fridge, opening it to count and recount the cans of Pitt until you started questioning the shape of the number “7.” You replayed the incident in your head from the moment Bill had announced his arrival through your closed front door to the last glimpse of his terrible burning, blue hued face, smiling down as it oozed bricked rows of black. 

That terrible grin stayed with you, and before long you began wondering if it was insanity to keep thinking he would just go away. Agreeing to a deal with a figment of your imagination wasn’t sounding too bad compared to the alternative of questioning the validity of your waking thoughts. Then again, maybe that was the answer. Maybe it was all one big hallucination, from the day your mirror was cracked to the uncannily realistic meeting with Bill’s less demonic but just-as-triangular self. Of course it was possible that it was all in your head! You had to convince yourself of that or it was an easy slide into territory you didn’t want to have to consider. 

Your thoughts burned away the midnight oil until you found yourself slogging through your morning routine with far less coherence than recommended.

The exhaustion was noticeable at work, painfully so whenever you had to sit at your desk and fight off the touch-and-go bouts of consciousness while staring at a computer screen. 

A few coworkers were concerned, none more so than Terry who insisted you sneak a nap in the break room while he guarded the door. You laughed at the thought and thanked him, that bit of humor helped you limp through the last few minutes of the day. 

Sleep was taunting you from the other side of a short drive home, but Terry was determined to be enlightened as to what had you in such a funk that day. You promised a meeting over lunch tomorrow and thanked him for his concern, all the while debating on whether you would be completely truthful about everything that you thought had been happening over the last week. After all, if it sounded crazy to you, there was no way it would sound better spoken out loud.

The drive was a blur, your mind nearly on auto-pilot at this point. The thought of what awaited you in dreams cast the usually welcoming view of your bedroom in a menacing light, but you didn’t even have the chance to make it there, falling asleep while removing your shoes on the couch. 

It seemed like just a few moments passed before you awoke. There was a clear passage of time though, the windows of your apartment dark from a long passed sunset. You rubbed the excess blood from your face and checked your watch just for good measure. There was something off about the way your shadow followed the motion of your hand though. It looked sluggish. Delayed.

It wasn’t yours.

The shape darkened and then jumped off the couch fabric, a spindly black hand burning as it sunk into your skin accompanied by that all too familiar obnoxious cackle. You knocked over the coffee table as you scrambled away from the couch and scraped the black, burning ink off your arm. It phased from corporeal back to shadow as it hit the ground, the rest of your vague shape slithering off the couch cushions to the floor, rejoining it. 

The burning sensation lingered on your arm, which in itself would have been disturbing enough, but all of your senses were focused on the shifting blight that now shot forward across the floor tiles and area rug, shadowy hands jumping off of the floor tile to wrap around your bare ankle with a searing grip. You cried out, both from the pain, but also the sheer insanity of what was happening. The closest item to your flailing arms became ammunition, a half full glass of water shattering on the living shadow. 

The sound that erupted from the black shape sent a horrific chill through your spine, shrieking metal and hissing steam rippling from the now writhing shadow. It had released you, and you weren’t about to waste the opportunity for escape.

Winter bit hard. The threat of the burning touch of a living shadow didn’t exactly leave you time to stop and grab a coat on your panicked sprint out the door. Would running away from sources of light be beneficial or detrimental? Was it able to phase through walls and doorways? The most relevant question being posed in your mile-a-minute mind just then though, was how your resident vengeful demon had been able to switch from mental to physical assault. The grip on your arm and leg still burned fresh, but there was no visible mark when you pulled up your pant leg and sleeve to check. You wondered if it was just another trick of the mind, but the pain was real enough to convince you otherwise. 

A few lonely street lamps flickered as you slowed your pace from the initial run. Soon just the rustle of dried out leaves and a soft howl of wind through the barren trees accompanied your short, hesitant gasps. The reprieve was brief, a cold snicker chasing rational thought away as you swore an eye split open within your shadow on the asphalt beneath your feet. 

“What’sa matter pal? Not sleeping well? Let me _give you a hand!_ ”

Before you had a chance to respond, burning shadowy claws snapped around your legs and threw you down, ice cold pavement began creeping up your back and around your neck as the street rose up around you. Grit began filling your vision as the asphalt seeped into your ears and over your eyes, a blood-curdling scream escaping you as your still free fingertips scraped themselves bloody against the tarred quicksand. 

“Sure would suck to be trapped for all eternity, watching time tick away from such a boring vantage point. I wouldn’t mind improving the view for a small fee~!”

 _Anything! Leave me alone! **MAKE IT STOP!!**_ Was what you wanted to reply with, but there was already tar oozing down your throat. Bill’s vicious cackle had you wondering if he even cared about striking a deal at this point. There were plenty of other less stubborn dupes he could take his pick from. For him, this was nothing more than sick entertainment, revenge on the idiot who dared to give him the bums rush. In the dream scape he was the law, and woe be to those who didn’t toe the line.

His laugh remained, but everything fell silent as you were pulled further down. The prospect of bring trapped in this immobile tomb began to sink in as you felt the last exposed bit of flesh on your fingers slip under the asphalt.

Suddenly, Bill’s faint laughter stopped. Then a muffled shriek rang out that definitely wasn’t yours. 

The viscous trap recoiled from your body, the night air shocking as you were practically thrown out to the surface again, hacking and spitting the putrid taste from your mouth. Beneath you, the street returned to normal. 

Bill’s yellow-bricked body convulsed, his individual shapes shuddering as his tiny hands clutched at a very red and very irritated eyeball. Two well polished boot heels clicked in front of your line of sight just before another splash from the stranger’s flask set Bill’s yellowed masonry smoking with a renewed shriek. He disappeared in an angry flash of blue flame that burned into your retinae.

“Wh-what the hell…was that!?” You gasped, now wavering between denial and hysteria, even with the lingering stench of tar and car oil on your skin.

The stranger calmly replaced the cap on his hip flask and answered in a manner not at all befitting of someone who had just driven off a killer hallucination that until that moment you were sure no one would have believed.

“Demon. Dream demon actually. Guessing you’re the one who’s been keeping my client awake all hours of the morning. People gotta sleep, yaknow.”

You were blinking ferociously, trying to get the white-blue flash in the center of your vision to subside to see if this was actually coming from a person, or you had reached a new level of hallucinatory desperation. “That’s not what I meant-wait. Client? Who-?”

“Your neighbor hired me, or rather, called the police to report a domestic disturbance involving screaming all hours of the night for the last 72 hours. You’d be surprised what you can pick up on police scanners!”

The bit about the cops would have to wait until a few other questions were answered to your satisfaction. Not being able to see who it was nonchalantly commenting on scanning police radio dispatch and finding nothing strange about driving off a previously unstoppable nightmare was really getting to you.

“Not to sound ungrateful, but you are…?” 

Features were starting to register through the burned image in your eyes. The street light revealed blond hair with distinct black roots, maybe even a frosted dye job? You couldn’t really tell aside from the lit edges of his silhouette. His clothes, however, stood out with garish flare. A puffed out red jacket vest, some kind of band groupie turtle-neck underneath, and well pressed black slacks that didn’t seem to mesh with the top half of his fashion sense at all. 

The man finished securing his flask and offered a hand to you, his expression neither friendly nor intimidating, but rather what you might get if a guide dropped their polite demeanor long enough to lay down some biting wit on an ignorant tourist.

“Name’s Gillian.” He hauled you to your feet but you still found yourself having to crane your neck to look at him. He continued with a somewhat amused smirk, eyes shifting from the now solidified ground to you as the faint red and blue of a patrol car began reflecting on the pavement at the end of the drive, “and you must be the guy who royally pissed off _Bill Cipher_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Woah who’s this now? Could it be some kind of plot rearing its head? In this story? Weirder things have happened.]]


	9. Stranger Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A demon savvy stranger by the name of Gillian has just saved your bacon, but who is he really and what is he up to? Introductions are cut short, and then a familiar face drops in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[ More plot development and a new advantage against your worst nightmares presents itself. No warnings for this chapter! ]]

“And you must be the guy who royally pissed off Bill Cipher.”

Your confusion focused into a pointed glare, immediately homing in on the man’s eyes to ensure both were present and accounted for. Gillian, in turn, shied away at the sudden shift in attitude and raised his hands with an apologetic laugh, “Or not?” 

“No, you're right. But what I wanna know is-”

“Later," He cut you off, "I don’t have the best reputation with these guys,” he said backing away, attention completely on the approaching patrol car.

“What!?” You were torn between wanting to chase him down to get some answers and not wanting to bolt in plain view of an approaching law enforcement officer. As the smack of the stranger’s well polished shoes against the pavement faded, you screwed up your face, ran your palms over your cheeks and ears, and did a full body reset. Time to explain why you had awoken your neighbors for the past week screaming bloody murder without being committed to an asylum.

—

You thanked goodness for friendly police officers and a clean record, in this town anyway. She hadn’t raised any questions about the ‘night terrors’ you relayed in your explanation, and the ensuing conversation about lucid dreaming and Aristotle was a nice surprise. In all honesty, you weren’t being disingenuous. It _was_ a rash of nightmares that kept you up and resulted in your water glasses being one-short of a full set. But you sure as hell left out the realistic hallucinations and immediate near-death experience that led you to question your sanity and everything you thought you knew about waking reality.

As you approached your still-open apartment door there was a dull thud, then the unmistakably shrill clatter of metal from inside. You rushed in and leveled a weapons-grade glower at Gillian as he desperately tried to save the rest of the stacked mixing bowls from spilling out of your cupboard. One hand was clutching a half-eaten apple and the other had a twin of the shattered tumbler on your floor, presumably retrieved from the quickly emptying compartment above his head. 

With a fully lit room, you could finally give this _Gillian_ a proper size-up, and the splitting frosted tips of his poorly groomed hair along with a cheap pewter pendant, filthy red down vest, well-worn “Love God” turtleneck, and heavy bags under his eyes wasn’t improving his image from earlier. You closed the door behind you and cocked your head, your questioning expression threatening him as he froze mid-bowl-save with a guilty shock across his face. 

_How did you get in here? Why are you raiding my fruit stock? Who exactly are you?_ all fought for position at the front of your brain as your hung jaw worked slowly back and forth in the silence.

“…Why the hell are you wearing pressed dress slacks?”

There was a long pause before he relaxed with a smile.

“Is that really the best question you can come up with? Considering everything that just happened outside, I’m stunned.” 

He stuffed the apple between his teeth and shoved the mess of kitchenware safely onto the counter top before filling his glass at the water tap as you mentally turned his light hearted response over a few times.

As curious as you were about why his grooming sensibilities seemed to come to a dead stop north of his belt buckle, he was right.

“Fair point.” You conceded, keeping a weather eye on him as he retreated with his beverage to step over the glass fragments still on the tile floor, and sit on the couch edge. 

“How do you know about Bill? And what was in that flask you doused him with?”

Gillian nodded deeply as you listed off the two questions, as if he were gaging the relevance of the inquiries against a personal rubric. 

“Good on the first one, but I’m not answering that until you do. And on the second,” he set down the glass and pulled his flask out, tossing it to you with only a quick verbal queue as warning. “Take a good whiff.”

Your expression slouched incredulously as you looked from the sealed flask in your hand to your unwelcome guest. “No thanks.” You tossed it back and he seemed a bit confused at first, then a dawning raise of his brows cued you to sneer and continue in a mocking tone, “ _does this smell like chloroform to you?_ ” 

He laughed as sheepishly as before and unscrewed it to take an apologetic swig, “What? No NO nonono! Water! Just water, infused with a ton of sage. Also blessed by a priest because you can **NOT** be too careful when a mind demon’s involved.”

“So that thing **is** a demon.” You filed that bit of information away and strategically positioned yourself in front of the knife drawer as the interrogation continued. You conceded his terms and crossed your arms, leaning against the counter. “Bill showed up in one of my dreams. He offered to make a deal with me, wanted a ‘ticket to Realsville’ or something like that. I told him to go pack sand and he’s been dogging me ever since.”

Gillian’s eyes widened at your story, “A deal? You didn’t agree to it did you!?”

“I think **not** agreeing to it is what got me to this point, Poirot.”

His eyes squinted a bit as he mouthed _Poirot?_

You rolled your eyes and smiled shallowly, “Dick Tracy. Batman. Sherlock?”

“Oh…OH! Right.” He laughed that embarrassed little laugh again. “Detectives…”

Gillian’s gaze dropped from you to the glass on the floor, then to his flask, and the haphazard apple chewing turned quickly to contemplative and pensive apple chewing.

“So?”

He didn’t seem to hear you, turning the spent core over in his fingers before taking a long drink of water from his glass.

“Hey!”

His attention finally snapped back to you mid-gulp, “Yghes?” he coughed through the drink, wiping splashed water from his chin and neck as your hackles raised.

“How do you know about Bill Cipher!?” You unfolded your arms and leaned forward a bit for emphasis, but also to subtly edge the drawer open behind you.

He stood and placed the apple core into his now empty glass and took a slow canter towards you, his free hand dipping into his vest pocket. Your shoulders tensed as you closed your grip on one of the utensils behind you in the drawer. It felt like a paring knife, but anything would work if it came down to it.

“Listen,” he started, reaching forward with his previously pocketed hand. He was holding something, but you couldn’t see what it was. 

Your arm tensed as you readied your strike, brow set, jaw clenched. 

Then his hand went right past you to slap a couple dollars on the counter top, followed closely by the now empty glass and apple core being set gently next to the currency. You let the trapped breath between your teeth go, and side stepped to give him some maneuvering room. Gillian then noticed the knife in your hand and jumped back with his arms waving, his flask jostled from its resting place in his vest to clatter to the floor, “Woah WOAH!”

“You _did_ break in,” your accusing expression didn’t crack, your tone of voice firm, but a bit on the apologetic defensive side after seeing his laughably unexpected reaction to your readied defense. Blade still gripped tight, he didn’t even notice his anti-demon concoction had taken a dive as he retreated from the kitchen.

“Come on! You left the door wide open! Jeeze!! Okay but really,” he backed up towards the door with both hands still visible, “I gotta run, but whatever you do, _do **NOT** make a deal with that thing_. He’ll make anything sound legit, but don’t believe a word of it-” As his eyes caught sight of the scratched up knock-off Rolex on his wrist he cursed and smacked into the wall in his haste. 

“I’ll fill you in on my stuff next time, I promise! I just gotta-ah shit, okay, bye!!”

He practically hopped his way backwards over the sill and bolted down the stairway before you could protest.

After a moment to take in his advice, you closed the door and turned the lock with an authoritarian snap. You then turned to clean up the broken glass still plaguing your floor tiles. You noticed Gillian’s silver liquor flask had been left behind and gave it a once-over before pocketing it yourself. He did say he would fill you in ‘next time’, so wherever that ended up being, you could return it to him then.

As you finished sweeping up the last shard on the floor and ran a dry rag over the tiles, the hairs on the back of your neck suddenly raised. The linear edge of a shadow was overlapping your own as you knelt, bent over the drying water streaks on your floor. As you set down the rag and dustpan, you exhaled slowly and stood, setting your hands in your back pockets. You then turned to face the three-sided nightmare with a thick veneer of courage rooted firmly in the death grip on Gillian’s “Demon-B-Gon.”

His spindly black arms hung down from his base on either side of his legs, and the single eye at his center was strained to a slit just inches from your face, frustration and anger palpable as they warped the immediate space around his yellow bricked surface. This wasn’t his usual happy, sadistically gleeful poise. This was terrible, barely restrained rage. 

“Hey Bill…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[ Bill doesn't seem too thrilled about your conversation with Gillian. Hope that water trick works twice! ]]


	10. Brainstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill tries bargaining after Gillian's Demon-B-Gone turns out to be super effective. Though considering everything he's pulled, an accord will probably not be reached any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[No warnings for this chapter, unless eyeballs appearing where they shouldn't now has an associated phobia.]]

The absence of a mouth didn’t seem to effect Bill’s ability to express a wide range of emotion, the current of which was somewhere between vein-popping anger and poorly veiled frustration. Your fingers squeezed the flask as his slitted pupil shook ever so slightly then relaxed, the mortar between his bricks glowing faintly as he cleared his figurative throat - detail is everything when you don’t have a body, you supposed.

“Alright short-stack, I think we got off on the wrong foot before-” he floated back and leaned on his freshly materialized cane. The world shifted to muted colors as his hand flourished and burst into flame. He jabbed the handshake offer towards you in his usual pushy, cocksure tone. 

“Name’s Bill Cipher! And you are…?” 

You didn’t even look at the blue flame wreathed claw before you, eyes set on his and hands still poised to douse him in sage-water. Bill rolled his eye and extinguished the flames with a snap.

“Oh come on! You’re not actually going to take that homeless ballroom dance reject’s ranting seriously, are you?”

Your expression didn’t budge. This thing had harried you for over a week and, as far as you were convinced, had tried to kill you less than an hour ago. Now that you had a way to fight back, Bill was tacking towards diplomacy, and you weren’t going to have any of it. 

“I can see you’re still a little upset about earlier-but hey! It was just a little enhanced bargaining technique! I really don’t want much, just 24 hours in your plane of existence! Easy!”

You finally spoke up at that statement, “You’re already here! You’ve been here for a week! Why won’t you just bugger off!?”

Bill’s eye squinted slightly, you assumed it was a smile. 

“Ohoh but that’s where you’re wrong, pal! See, I can only do what I nee-Well, let’s just say it’s complicated. But that’s where **you** come in!” 

His shifty expression was doing nothing for his argument. Randomly appearing supernaturally versed hobo or not, what Gillian had warned about earlier made enough sense for you, and at this point there was nothing Bill could say that would convince you otherwise.

“Look buddy, I’m not enjoying this any more than you are-”

Your eyes widened in anger at that quip, which had Bill bursting into his sadistic little laugh. 

“Okay okay, that was a complete lie. I have been having the time of my existence! You’ve got some _great_ horrified expressions.”

The flask was out, your fingers spinning the cap off as Bill suddenly cut his giggle-fit short.

“Woah wait hold on there! What I meant was I was just having a bit of fun! Demon humor! Can’t hold that against a guy, can you?”

Your set jaw and burning glare argued the latter.

“I really just want to cut a deal, get it over with, and move on to the next schmuck on my list!!” 

As much as his complete disregard for the terror he had put you through got your goat, he was putting out more useful information now than he ever had before. You stayed your hand and left the cap on the silver flask to let him continue. 

“Go on…”

Bill let out an exasperated sigh, “Thank you! Yeesh!” He straightened his bow tie and folded his tiny claws over his cane before continuing in a more professional tone, “Truth is, bucky, I can only get out of your head if you and I make a deal, and I fulfill my end of the contract…or fail to!” he added with worrisome glee, “Which would null this whole situation anyway.”

It was probably lie after lie spilling out of him by now, but what he was saying made some sense…as far as supernatural demonic rules might go.

“I’ll admit, torturing you with nightmares was pretty much out of spite. Haven’t had a flesh-bag punk me in my own dreamscape in a while…” 

His whole body flashed to red at his admittance, probably recalling when you had sent him through the wall, minus one eye. The memory brought a chuckle out of you, but you remained attentive in the hopes he would keep spilling his guts.

“And it’s pretty obvious that you don’t want anything I might have to offer.” Bill’s body returned to its normal color as he began twirling his cane, “So what say we just make a throw-away deal? You don’t even have to help me out! Just ask me for something I couldn’t possibly follow through on, I’ll have to default on it, then we can go our separate ways nice and friendly like. Whaddya say?”

You did like the proposal, but Gillian’s warning was still fresh in your mind. 

As Bill returned a blue flame to his palm and offered it forward, you struck. The water burst to boiling against his eye and ran down his masonry, leaving black burn marks the whole way. Bill cried out in surprise and pain, much to your unexpected enjoyment.

“Yeah pull the other one. You can sit and spin for all I care!” Before he could reply you doused him again which pulled a surprisingly desperate plea from him. 

“You’re making a huge mistake! Help me help you out here!!” 

Bill’s voice cracked with a renewed scream as black ooze began dripping from where the water seared him. 

“DON’T MAKE ME DO SOMETHING DESPERATE, KID!!” 

His eye focused in anger, but the flask was still well over half full and you held your proverbial ground, readying another splash.

“DAMMIT!!” Bill cursed and disappeared in another flash of blue flame, leaving no evidence he had ever been there save for the echoing scream in your ears.

You gave the bottle a surprised “Hm” and raised a brow as you sealed it, contemplating buying a round for Gillian the next time you saw him.

That night was blessedly nightmare free with the Demon-strength RAID tucked securely in your arms.

\--

With a full night’s rest, and incident-free morning run to the store for a large bunch of fresh sage, you decided Terry would get as close to the truth as he would accept for why your week had been absolute hell at the office. Sure enough he lobbed a friendly reminder over your desk around 1100, it bounced off your monitor and landed perfectly on the keyboard. You heard a muffled “Yes!” from beyond the fabric-wrapped divider. Previous attempts usually resulted in a knocked over pencil jar or having to retrieve the ball of paper from the jungle of wires beneath your desk. As you un-balled the scrap paper, Terry’s nose and overly expressive eyes rested just over the cubical wall, waiting for your response.

“12:15 sounds good, Terry,” you laughed. 

“See you at the deli!!” His cheerful voice carried even as he faced away, already making his way back to the conference room. You stood from your swivel chair to nail him between the shoulders with his own crumpled message but stopped. Your arm was frozen mid wind-up. A worried, disbelieving gape replaced the previous comfortable smile that the prospect of lunch had brought on. 

A sinister, slit-pupil eyeball had peeled open among the brown curled locks of hair on the back of Terry’s head, and after a single blink, it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Ruh roh, Raggy...]]


	11. Tentatively Sane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to spill your guts about the insanity that is Bill Cipher and hope Terry doesn't send you to the mental ward. But after everything that's happened, how much of what you see is real, and who can you actually trust?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[No warnings for this chapter!]]

The lunch hour rushed at you, second guessing and debating with yourself the whole way to the deli shop as you went over every contingency you could think of for how to deal with Bill throwing down the proverbial gauntlet. He was probably trying to get you to crack in the midst of your professional environment, force you into choosing between a deal and the end of your career. Was he actually going to reveal himself in public though? It would be a hell of a gambit on his part, but you weren’t about to put it past him. There had to be a way to fight back aside from the very temporary flask fix. You found yourself starting to wonder if that Gillian guy might be more useful than you initially thought. Of course it could all be a set up; some random wanderer shows up just at the right time to save the day? The whole thing smelled. Of course at this point you couldn’t trust much of anything you saw. How exactly do you fight a mind demon anyway?

In the middle of your internal debate Terry set down your order, snapping your attention back to the meal at hand and the daunting task ahead of you, “Been a rough start of the quarter, huh.” You nodded, staring intently at his forehead, wondering if an eye would split the skin apart and giggle at you. “So let’s hear it,” he tilted his head back briefly in gesture as he proceeded to tuck into a medium rare cholesterol-crusher on rye, “And don’t hold back. Believe me I’ve heard it all.”

“Nothin’ like this, you haven’t…”

“Try me.” He drawled with a confident sniff, “Had three friends come out to me, two more admitted they were cheating on their boyfriend and girlfriend, another three needed help with straightening out their tax fraud-” he listed each scenario off finger by finger with the hand that wasn’t keeping the reins on his caloric catastrophe, ”and a kinky Partridge Family role-play obsession in a pear tree. Believe me, whatever it is, I can take it.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, certain he had made that last item up just for comedic effect.

“Alright, man…”

Here goes.

“Look, you’re into spooky stories right? Thrillers? Scary movies? Twin Peaks kinda stuff?”

“Much as the next guy,” he replied without batting an eye.

You were sure at this point your obvious pause was giving away at least the gist of what you were trying to get across, but true to your best bud’s promise, he wasn’t shifting an inch.

Okay. Now or never…

“Ever think there’s anything to em?”

“Sure, serial killers do freaky shit all the time.”

You closed your eyes and rubbed your face before forcing yourself to continue, “The supernatural bits I mean…”

Terry finished chewing and took a long sip of his drink, his focus on the table just behind you as he sized up the question.

He wasn’t about to bring up the slasher flick you two had just seen last month that kept you both ordering coffees at the local Mom n Pop for the rest of the night to stave off having to go back to darkened apartments. He knew you were more sensible than some kid afraid of the monster under their bed. He also knew you weren’t the type to pull pranks, at least not ones like this. A mountain of Fun-size Snickers waiting to avalanche out of the linen closet door, maybe. But not this.

As Terry mulled his response over you decided to add more fuel to the fire, might as well lay it out now that he was listening.

“I had a weird nightmare about two weeks ago, nothing too funky, just some scary cartoon monster or something. Little yellow pyramid with a top hat, Bugs Bunny-grade sadism, and I’m talkin’ the Bob Clampett years. After the first night it kept coming back-and I mean straight up self-referencing both it and the nightmares it had given me.”

You stopped yourself from getting too loud after one of the female restaurant patrons gave a sideways glance at you.

“And this was some serious recurrence, it gave itself a name, and far as I can figure, was completely self aware of my life and what was happening. I’ve had recurring nightmares before and this was definitely outside the goalposts of normalcy. Worst part is, I started seeing this thing while I was awake-”

Terry’s expression had moved far along from the neutral, welcoming half-smile he started with. His brows were furrowed and a concerned frown began to pull at the corners of his mouth.

“I know, I know!” You exclaimed, “Come on, man, you know me. I’ve got a lot better things to do with my time than make up garbage like this.” He nodded thoughtfully at that, but the frown didn’t go away. You continued in a more persuasive manner than before, like you were interviewing for your best friend’s confidence.

“You know I don’t believe in any of this ghosty, mystical junk-er didn’t. I didn’t believe it…”

Terry’s head tilted as he gave another encouraging nod, his expression still set on _concerned with a side of doubt._

“The other night this thing-Bill Cipher it calls itself,”

Terry’s expression finally cracked with a short giggle, expecting the punch-line to be delivered after a name like that. But your quiet stare was the only response, waiting for him to stop laughing before continuing. It drew the smile away from his face and instilled a new air of urgency to his furrowing brow.

“Bill wants me to make a deal with him. I was almost paved into the turning lane on 3rd street the other night because of him, and I’ve got the pieces of asphalt in my shower drain to prove it.”  
Terry physically reacted to that, leaning forward on his elbows to listen intently as you continued.

“Weirdest part is, some guy came along when that was happening, Gillian, says he deals with this kinda shit-demons-I dunno… But the point is he pulled a Wicked Witch on Bill with some holy water and saved my ass.”

“How did he-he was just _there?_ ” Terry finally broke in, his expression radiating eight flavors of concern.

“Says he listens to police scanners, the nightmares from this thing have been waking my neighbors up all hours of the night. Apparently they finally called the cops when I shattered a glass trying to get away from Bill the other day.”

Terry didn’t nod, and his concern didn’t subside, he just took the explanation at face value and seemed to be internalizing everything at this point while trying not to show any change in demeanor.

“That was two days ago, and I’m still seeing Bill all over the place,” you tapped the back of your head, “his eye stared at me from your skull just an hour ago.”

The deli seemed on edge now, the few people who had been talking grew quiet as bits and pieces of your conversation carried and made them either worried for their safety or had them trying to cover their laughter at hearing the two nut jobs talk about monsters and demons in the corner. Terry looked somewhere between calling bullshit with a raucous laugh, and pulling out the chaise lounge to ask about your childhood.

Before either of you had the chance to break the settled quiet, the patron who had taken an interest in your conversation earlier dove headlong into your personal space with all the finesse of a one-legged ostrich on a Tilt-a-Whirl.

“Hey! ‘Scuse me! Heard you say something about a demon? It was a demon right? This Bill Cipher thing, right??”

You and Terry sat stunned at the sudden intrusion. Somewhere between embarrassment, insult, and disbelief, the two of you exchanged a withering look before addressing the inappropriately excited embodiment of the term "Goth" with a cautious level of civility. 

An old stitched up mail delivery bag covered in Nightvale pins and Devil’s traps dangled by her side. “Supernatural” was plastered across her well worn t-shirt with the classic blood splatter motif accompanying it, which went miraculously with her patch-work jeans. She was just 3 piercings shy of having a spare bicycle chain on hand. Eyeliner was not one of her subtle points. And streaks of harsh black in her otherwise platinum blond hair perfectly outlined the thick fringe covering half of her face to create an almost believable cell-shaded appearance to anyone looking at her from a dead-on angle.

“Uh…I’m sorry, who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Well...this is awkward...]]


	12. Paraphrenia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill pulls out all the stops as you try not to completely blow your credibility with a coworker, but the same trick can only work so many times on a demon as clever as Bill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Paranoia and paraphrenia are rampant in this chapter, with a side of scopophobia. [Mouth Bill](http://doidles.tumblr.com/post/103216257329/some-mouth-bill-edits-for-you-to-enjoy) also makes an appearance!]]

“Uh…I’m sorry, who are you?”

Before you finished the question she was already on a roll, “Oh jeeze what am I doing? Jill! Er, Juliana Cider, but it’s just Jill really, I mean you don’t have to call me one or the other, I don’t mind really, but I figured since I don’t know you, I might as well give the full disclosure-”

Terry mouthed ‘Is she serious?’ at you as her thought diarrhea continued unabated.

“It’s just that, I couldn’t help overhearing and I dunno about you but this is TOTALLY my thing, I mean I’ve been researching the conspiracies and declassified spook stuff since I was a kid and it sounds like you’ve got the real deal going on!”

Her wardrobe was a definite reinforcer to the behavior you were astonished to be on the receiving end of, and you supposed it wasn't out of the question that someone could be genuinely interested in your situation. Her covered eye was putting you on edge though.

“Oh,” you finally replied as she stopped to take a breath, only really picking up about half of what she had said through the deep seated suspicion that had you questioning her real motive for butting in.

“I know it’s a bit weird but I just had to chime in here. When you said that guy who showed up used holy water, did that actually work? I mean if this Bill guy is actually a demon, usually it takes a bit more kick-at least that’s what I’ve read so I don’t know if-”

You jumped into the stream of conscious rant with a forceful lean, “He put a ton of sage in it too.”

Jill’s face seemed to light up at your admission, “Are you KIDDING!? That’s exactly what Darkmage Weekly suggested!! And you said this thing is a _Dealer_ type, right? You said he was trying to bargain with you?”

“Yeah, something about a ticket to this plane of existence-”

“Oh! Oh!! Did he offer a handshake to seal the deal!?”

At this point you were struggling to keep an even tone as her over-the-top enthusiasm was actually touching closer to home on your experiences than you had expected. Terry remained in disbelief that you were even participating in a conversation with her.

“Keeping in mind I’ve never actually dealt with one in real life, but this is was the Frommer’s Haunts Handbook suggests. I mean if he was offering a deal then-”

The deli was suddenly pitched into monochrome grays with a limited color palette of muted reds and yellows highlighting the people that dotted the surrounding tables. All of them turned simultaneously to stare at you, black pitch leaking from their empty eye sockets. Juliana’s single visible eye rolled backwards until a new, elongated pupil slid up and stared at you with a burning intent. Her lips peeled back into a cruel smirk as she stated in that all too familiar nasally voice, “-You should have taken it.”

You jumped back in your seat with a hitched yelp, a single blink returning everything to normal. Juliana was still mid-rant, nothing suggesting what you had just seen had actually taken place.

“-then you need to trick him into making a bad deal! Hey, are you alright?”

Both Juliana and Terry were staring at you as your spring-loaded muscles relaxed from the pre-sprint position they had assumed.

“Sorry, just… I’m fine,” you lied, blinking a few more times for good measure as Julian sprang right back into her verbal assault.

“Well like I said, those Dealer types just need a bad deal and they move on. Maybe something like, them killing themselves to fulfill their side of it, or giving you all of their powers in exchange. They can’t technically fulfill it so-”

You stopped listening as she continued, eyes squinting as suspicion reared like an angry storm from the back of your thoughts.

“Where’s your other eye?”

The out-of-nowhere question caught both her and Terry off guard. He had fallen completely silent after your seemingly unwarranted gasping flinch, and now was looking at you with more concern than the oddball that had landed in the middle of your lunch outing.

Julian laughed, “What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

You immediately reached for your flask and splashed the unfortunate Julian right in the eye with the fragrant water. She replied as well as could be expected of someone who suddenly had a drink thrown in their face. A flurry of _What the hell's_ , _Are you crazy's_ , and assorted whines of displeasure. Even Terry had joined in the chorus of replies, standing to put a hand on your outstretched arm as he asked what had gotten into you.

His grip burned and color fled from your surroundings as all the features of his normal human face were replaced by a huge gaping, fanged mouth that sneered at you.

“I can keep this up as long as it takes, flesh bag.”

You jerked your arm away with a pained hiss, throwing another splash at the laughing maw only to find the image of Terry wiping his face and stammering utter disbelief just half a second later.

The servers behind the counter had stopped their bustling, one was on the phone giving the restaurant address to someone on the other end of the line. The manager had come out from behind the register and was bee-lining for your table. You capped the flask and looked quickly from Terry’s astonished expression to the still-complaining Juliana and took a few steps back from the table.

“Oh no… I’m sorry, I just…I gotta go,” you winced from the still burning sensation on your arm and beat a hasty retreat from the deli. You could explain everything later, surely. I mean, if Terry had been willing to listen then, he’d probably lend an ear even after this. You just needed to fill him in on the sudden flashes of Bill’s influence and the fact that his face had been temporarily possessed by a mind demon which is why you had to defend yourself. Yeah. That didn’t sound insane or under the influence of some heavy duty PCP at all.

As the events unfolded, a familiar frosted top and shabby shirted acquaintance surveyed the scene from the opposite side of the street. Gillian scribbled something in a leather bound booklet and returned to observing just as you caught sight of his polished boots glinting in the window-filtered sunlight. It took a second, but you recognized him from the perfectly hemmed dress slacks and bad dye job trying to hid behind a crumpled newspaper. Your brows knitted as your frustration focused in an almost tangible line across the street.

“Gillian…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Sure, reader. Beating the hell out of Gillian will likely solve everything. If nothing else you'll feel better in the midst of your life falling apart.]]


	13. Last Stop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the disaster at the deli, your day doesn't look like it's going to get any better. Then Gillian drops in!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Warning readers! Falling and claustrophobia ahead!]]

As you left the establishment, a familiar face peered over his comically positioned, two-day-old newspaper to survey the scene that was developing at the table you had been sharing. He stuffed a few complimentary pretzels in his mouth and wrote something down in a leather-bound booklet just as you noticed the badly frosted dye-job and tell-tale patch work on his shirt sleeves from clear across the street. To be fair, the all glass storefront he was sitting at didn’t do much to aid his conspicuous stake-out.

Your disheartened expression focused intensely at the sight of Gillian. What was he doing here? And why hadn't he come to get his flask back? He was just sitting there watching the whole mess unfold-and he could have vouched for you! The previously curious line of questioning in your train of thought shifted and was soon demanding answers in the form of a solid throttling.

Gillian jumped in his seat as he noticed your attention round on him, as well as your abrupt physical change in direction. He scrambled to stuff his journal away and fold his paper, grabbing a half-eaten croissant off the left-over plate at the table next to him before you saw him bolt out the back exit of the coffee shop. A busboy immediately tended to his left over pretzel bowl without batting an eye at his dash out the door. _He must do that often_ , you concluded before resigning the chase. There was an empty cubicle that needed manning and you had a lot of excuses to start thinking up before you saw Terry again.

\--

Work was surprisingly uneventful after the literal nightmare scenario that was your lunch break. Just a quick update of the employee registrar at your manager’s behest, and a few awkward shrug-smiles from Terry in the hallway. Maybe a few days of laying low would help it blow over. Volunteer at a few company functions. Buy a round at Jenny’s upcoming bar crawl. Introduce Gillian to the March Madness betting pool-Wait WHAT!?

Your car screeched to a halt just as you rounded the corner and saw Gillian jimmying the front door to the apartment complex open with a crowbar. He didn't notice you yet, and you were double-timing your parking job to ensure he kept his nose’s appointment with your fist.

By the time you reached the foyer there was no sign of him except some hastily chalked squiggles and markings on the entrance carpet.

As you stomped the hall and waited for the elevator, more strange marks caught your attention on the elevator stoop edge. And a few more Sharpie’d over the button that marked your floor. If there was one subject you took a shine to in the tumultuous time that was high school, it was anything involving ancient symbology and mythos, but this thing was leaving you scratching your head. A diamond, some arrows, a couple seagulls around a flag pole? Gillian breaking into your apartment was creepy enough, but all these precautionary runes were building up some dreadful paranoia to boot.

The elevator doors opened and you jammed your floor number, squaring up in the mirrors as you went through a few scenarios of what you might find. You knitted your brow and blinked once. Then twice. Then closed your eyes…but you could still see yourself?

The elevator shuddered to a sudden stop just below your floor, color cracking and flaking off the mirrored walls like an old farm fence until you were left staring at yourself as one eye opened in the middle of your face and your smile stretched wide in anticipation of that horrible nasal cackle you knew was coming.

The sage-water was soon coating every corner of the elevator, but his laughter continued and amplified, unabated. Bill's eye squinted and darkened until it burned blue through the ineffective water dripping down the glass. Your unnatural face contorted with his words in the mirror,

“Fancy meeting you here, pal!"

You gaped at your own twisted reflection and slowly capped your Demon-b-gone. "Bill I don't know what you think y-"

"Look, I don’t have much time to chat, chuckles. So, you ready to make a deal? Or-” his smile twisted gleefully as he enunciated every next syllable.

“Going _down?_ ”

The elevator dropped suddenly, almost a full foot before stopping again, and left you gasping against one of the watery walls.

"W-wait! This can't be haAHH!"

The elevator jerked and shuddered ominously under your feet.

“This isn't real! IT’S NOT REAL…!!”

Your voice shook through the panic, everything certainly felt real, but this time you weren't going to be blinking down at an offended stranger if you guessed wrong. Bill’s voice rang out in sadistic glee once more,

“Going once!!”

Another short drop.

“ _Twice!!_ ”

Again, this time the screech of the cable breaks drowning out your desperate protest.

“THIRD TIME’S THE CH- **AAAAAAAAAAGH!!!** ”

Your possessed reflection contorted and howled, shattering the mirrors and shorting out the elevator lights. A dull security lamp flickered on revealing broken glass surrounding you. The shock had you sweating bullets and gasping in the ominous silence. Then a dull clang rang through the door, followed by a loud scrape and blinding, colorful, daylight as a crowbar forced the elevator open. Gillian looked as winded as you, an uncapped marker hanging out of his mouth before he let it drop with a sigh of relief.

“That was too close,” He stammered as you jumped at the floor edge and hauled yourself out of the shaft. The edge of the doors were visible now and covered with one huge glyph. Your line of sight went from the glass-filled near-dead-experience to him, not sure what kind of words best fitted how you felt that moment. At least, if anything came out of all this, you didn't feel like wringing his scrawny neck anymore.

“Heh,” he picked up the marker dropped from his teeth before and capped it. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he laughed, “Guess I missed a spot…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[Still alive and have a lot more planned, just divvying up my free time between drawing comics and a masters program! How about that AMA eh?]]

**Author's Note:**

> [[Hehe, good luck sleepin' tonight, dude.]]


End file.
